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Strategies for Teaching Leadership to Graduate Students

Elizabeth Greger

Grand Canyon University

Nur-647E Nursing Education Seminar 1

Dr. Lyn Cain

August 7, 2021
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Introduction

Developing a course for graduate nursing students on leadership strategies can be

challenging because of their different learning styles, but there are strategies that can be used to

accommodate each of them. These techniques will be used to help the participants understand

how to develop their own leadership style and skills. The first part of this paper will discuss the

class content and agenda, strategies to accommodate the learning styles of each learner, and

Bloom’s taxonomy learner domains (cognitive, psychomotor, and affective) that help explain the

class objectives. The second part will describe diverse learning styles of the participants, the

learning activities and rationale in supporting the learning needs, two strategies to assess

learning, and how consideration of the learning styles aligns with the service Christian

worldview.

Part One: Class Content

During this course, leaders will learn how to be a role model, focus on following a vision,

and make an impact with their team by pushing them to reach their full potential and bringing

out the best of each person, all of which will help the leader reach their own career goals (Van

Edwards, 2021). This leadership training course will teach leadership techniques and skills, such

as assertive communication, motivation methods, and coaching (Van Edwards, 2021). The first

step is to learn what kind of leadership style they have – autocratic, delegative, or participative.

Autocratic leaders give clear expectations of how things should be done and make decisions

without input from anyone, delegative leaders have opposite tactics and allow the group to agree

on decisions, while participative leaders are a mixture because they provide direction and take

feedback from the team (Van Edwards, 2021). Learning how to show appreciation and

confidence in the team’s performance will help leaders know how to motivate their team, which
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has shown to improve effectiveness and efficiency (Van Edwards, 2021). Decision making,

which correlates with a personality type, is an important skill to learn. Class participants will be

encouraged to learn how to make decisions based on what they know about their own personality

– analytical (carefully examine the facts and observations), behavioral (observe the teams’

actions), conceptual (use creative thinking and collaboration concerning prospective events), or

directive (rational but without perspective influences) (Van Edwards, 2021). Managing conflict

is also a learned leadership quality, but the key is to keep calm, communicate, confront the

situation, collaborate to problem solve, understand why the conflict happened, and control stress

and emotions (Van Edwards, 2021), Teaching these leadership techniques will be outlined in

lecture and powerpoint modalities before dividing the class into groups to discuss their ideas of

how it affects them individually.

Accommodating Different Learning Styles

When teachers develop a class for graduate students, they need to account for different

learning styles, such as visual, kinesthetic, and auditory. Results from one research study showed

that most students prefer a unimodal dimension of kinesthetic learning style, with visual reported

in the next largest percentage, followed by a bimodal dimension of visual and kinesthetic

(Chetty, Handayani, Sahabudin, Ali, Hamzah, Rahman, & Kasim, 2019). Even though auditory

learners did not represent a large group, they should not be excluded because they can be easily

accommodated by different teaching styles. Educators should use several different teaching

styles and strategies to match their students’ learning styles because it improves students’

success (Chetty, Handayani, Sahabudin, Ali, Hamzah, Rahman, & Kasim, 2019). Research has

identified different teaching methods - expert, formal authority, personal, facilitator, and

delegator – based on the teacher’s behavior, beliefs, and instructional methods (Chetty,
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Handayani, Sahabudin, Ali, Hamzah, Rahman, & Kasim, 2019). Strategies used in these methods

include discussions, questioning, role playing, games and simulation, demonstration, and

inquiry/discovery (Dorgu, 2015). Formal methods would be direct and involve demonstrations

and explanations. Personal teaching techniques, such as role playing and inquiry, provide the

student the opportunity to participate in the instruction and actively engage in learning (Dorgu,

2015). Simulations provide real life situations for the students to interact with, which can be a

welcome change compared to routine classroom learning (Dorgu, 2015). Research has shown

that when students were evaluated on instructed content, each learning style responded well to all

the teaching styles (both individually and multimodel), and the bimodal visual/kinesthetic styles

responded best to the personal and formal authority model (Chetty, Handayani, Sahabudin, Ali,

Hamzah, Rahman, & Kasim, 2019). Providing a variety of teaching strategies would

accommodate more students’ learning styles.

Learner Objective using Bloom’s Taxonomy

Learning objectives are an effective way to determine how effective teaching strategies

are and how well students learn the material. In the mid-1950s, Benjamin Bloom classified

cognitive functioning levels for various mental processes students experience to help teachers

understand how to improve their teaching skills. According to Bloom’s Taxonomy, learning

objectives follow three main domains - cognitive, affective, and psychomotor – and have simple

to complex levels of understanding that reflect an active learning process (Ruhl, 2021).

Individual tiers of the cognitive model (from lower to higher levels of learning) follow

knowledge, comprehension, application, synthesis, and evaluation (Ruhl, 2021). Students in

leadership classes would learn and understand different management strategies, apply and

integrate them to their leadership styles, and evaluate them by evaluating their effectiveness on
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their team. A learning objective would instruct the prospective leader to identify their leadership

style, their personality type, and what strategies they would use to make decisions and encourage

their team. The affective domain provides a system that helps control behavior and integrate

beliefs (Ruhl, 2021). Its lowest to highest tiers include receiving, responding, valuing,

organizing, and characterizing. Students would learn different leadership styles and their

effectiveness, accept diverse needs of their team, organize values and ethical standards of the

team, and display a professional commitment to those standards (Ruhl, 2021). A learning

objective would instruct the prospective leader to identify an ethical expectation of their team,

and how they would display their commitment to that standard. Part of developing educational

courses is identifying objectives that should be met at its conclusion, which helps give value to

the knowledge that is learned.

Part II

Diverse Learning Styles

The most common categories of learning styles are visual, auditory, verbal (reading and

writing), and kinesthetic. In this class of ten students, three are visual learners, four are

kinesthetic learners, and three are auditory learners. Visual learners understand concepts

presented with colors, graphs, pictures, and diagrams because they can visualize things in their

mind, which helps them focus on details (Hansen, 2018). Kinesthetic learners learn by doing an

activity, such as a hands-on skill or teaching game (Hansen, 2018). Auditory learners remember

things they have heard, such as lectures or videos, which helps them follow verbal instructions

(Hansen, 2018). Effective teachers use different teaching methods to help all of the students learn

the course material.

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Learning Activities That Support Each Learner

Using several teaching techniques would help the students focus on the course material

and identify what they need. Providing the information in a lecture form accompanied by a

power point would provide the visual and auditory learners material students would remember

(Dorgu, 2015). Afterwards, breaking the students into smaller groups (with each learning style)

with a white board and instructions to write down different leadership styles would help

everyone (including the kinesthetic learners) pinpoint their own course objectives (Dorgu, 2015).

Role playing and team teaching encourages those who want to function as the leader the

opportunity to gain experience with feedback from the rest of the group (Dorgu, 2015). Using

different teaching techniques help the majority of students learn the material in the class.

Strategies to Assess Learning

The learning objectives for the students are to identify their leadership style, personality

style, and an ethical expectation; and give examples of how they would make decisions and

encourage their team to display ethical standards. Their take-away learning would be to provide

what they have learned about themselves and how they can use it in their leadership role. Also,

identifying an ethical standard for themselves and their team would explain how they would go

about making the project more meaningful. The team project should be completed with ethical

conduct and for the good of everyone. Learning things should be reinforced in the intended

environment, in this case, a team project led by someone who has learned how to provide

instruction and encouragement for their team. They should be able to use what they have learned

to successfully guide their team to complete a work project.

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Christian Service for Diverse Learners

The idiom “it takes all kinds to make a world” is true in all learning (and teaching)

situations and can present confusion for both the teacher and student. However, a teacher who

has a Christian worldview will be able to treat students with different learning styles equally and

provide what they need to succeed. Teaching is listed as a spiritual gift from God and teachers

who profess to hold Christian principles should display them when instructing their students

(Romans 12:7 NIV). Christians (teachers) are also instructed in Romans 12 3 NIV to “not think

of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgement, in

accordance with the faith God has given to each of you” to teach in accordance with your faith

(Romans 12:6 NIV). We are all created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26 NIV) and are worthy

of His love, which provides the basis for equal treatment (and love) by other Christians. God has

one image, but we are all individuals who represent His diverse and inclusive love.

Conclusion

Teachers need to learn many things before they prepare an instructional course.

Challenges include diverse learning styles, different teaching strategies, learning objectives that

are easy to meet, and how to assess the students’ response to the learning environment. Teachers

who apply Christian and scholarly examples of teaching will not only provide success for their

students, but for themselves as well.

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References

Chetty, N. D. S., Handayani, L., Sahabudin, N. A., Ali, Z., Hamzah, N., Rahman, N. S. A., &

Kasim, S. (2019). Learning styles and teaching styles determine students’ academic

performances. International Journal of Evaluation and Research in Education, 8(4),

610–615. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1238274.pdf

Dorgu, T.E., (2015). Different teaching methods: A Panacea for effective curriculum

implementation in the classroom. International Journal of Secondary Education. Special

Issue: Teaching Methods and Learning Styles in Education. (3)6-1, 77-87. doi:

10.11648/j.ijsedu.s.2015030601.13

http://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/html/10.11648.j.ijsedu.s.2015030601.13.html

Hansen, B., (2018). Your guide to understanding and adapting to different learning styles.

Cornerstone Education. https://www.cornerstone.edu/blog-post/your-guide-to-

understanding-and-adapting-to-different-learning-

styles/#:~:text=WHAT%20ARE%20THE%20DIFFERENT%20TYPES%20OF%20LEA

RNERS%3F%20Visual%2C,into%20one%20of%20those%20four%20categories%20of

%20learning.

Ruhl, C., (2021). Bloom’s taxonomy of learning. Simply Psychology,

https://www.simplypsychology.org/blooms-taxonomy.html

Van Edwards, (2021). 8 Skills all leadership trainings should teach managers. Science of People.

Wordpress, https://www.scienceofpeople.com/leadership-training/